You Are Not a Sickness
by Mighty-and-Powerful-Gods
Summary: My name is Jack. People tell me that I'm sick, but all I can see is her tiny form falling from my grasp. But she doesn't think I'm sick. I don't think she does. I just don't want to infect her. Modern au where Jack is in a mental hospital and develops feelings for Rapunzel.


Lights on, lights off. Bright, dark, snow, rain. Everything is buzzing. Fingertips on fire. Sometimes I'm afraid of being eaten alive. Sometimes I dream I'm a serial killer and wake up crying for my dead mother who isn't actually dead.

In other words, I'm pretty fucked up.

That's why they put me in here, I guess. The doctors. They said it would make me better. White walls and little paper cups and medication. That's the recipe for a happy, healthy life, apparently. Or maybe they just want to lock me up in this clinical prison to keep me from flying off the handle in public. Or maybe they just want my mind to run around in circles until I explode.

I'm clinically insane. My official diagnosis is schizophrenia coupled with bipolar disorder. That's a tall order for the employees on the ward. It's a pretty fucked up Cuckoo's Nest. Most of them don't know what to do when I'm screaming in my room at night. They force pills down my throat like cleaner down a clogged drain. They think my brain is clogged, I think. So they pour drain-o down every opening of my body.

Every day for twenty minutes I see Doctor Andy. He's supposed to help me "sort through everything". But he never really tells me what "everything" is. Most of the time we just talk about how I'm feeling that day.

"Icy. And frostbitten."

"No, Jack. Use our emotion words. The ones we talked about, remember?"

I want to tell him I feel like my hands are running away from the rest of my body, and that my brain feels like a fish tank. But Doctor Andy says he can't help me when I talk like that so I say,

"I'm content."

_Liar_.

At the beginning of every session he asks me if I'm ready to talk about my sister and I tell him "no thank you".

I don't talk to anyone about Emma.

I think I like Thursdays the best because those days we get to go to the art room. The art room is where we learn how to create art. Basically it's craft time, only we're all adults with shaky hands and darting eyes instead of children at school. Sometimes we make macaroni necklaces, sometimes we color, sometimes we make dream catchers.

Rapunzel teaches us how to make the crafts. I like Rapunzel. She has really long golden hair that she likes to keep up in a bun held together with purple chopsticks. And she has these emerald green eyes, and this teeny bright smile, and exactly six freckles across her nose, and… and…

I like Rapunzel because she makes my brain clearer. My hands don't shake as much when she's around. Rapunzel takes the colors scattered across my brain like blood on pavement and turns them into something beautiful. I am a rainbow of messed up, and broken, and psycho, but somehow she makes the colors beautiful.

I like Rapunzel because she doesn't make me lift up my tongue after I take my medication. I like Rapunzel because when she gives me my medication I actually swallow it.

3pm. The Day Room. Some old song from the forties is playing on the sound system. They say it's supposed to be "calming". Here's the thing about calming: storms are calm. I have the kind of storms that are destructive and silent. The kind of storms where you see the waves stretch to the sky and the lightning cuts the air leaving bolted scars, and you hear nothing but the soothing whistle of the wind.

It's the calming songs that make it easier to slip into my madness.

Lazy summer days. Driving a dusty old junker car through the countryside. My sister in the passenger seat with her feet propped on the dashboard. Wind whipping her hair around her face. The little brown mole beneath her right eye winks in the sunlight. Fast-forward too many mistakes too fast and she's slipping from my grasp the way blood slips from veins and she falls like the dying light.

White knuckles grip the chair in the Day Room like I'm still holding on to Emma. I look up, drenched in a cold sweat, and see concerned green eyes fixed on me. Intent. She's not worried I'll fly off the handle, or that I'll go try and kill someone or anything. It's a refreshing change. Her eyes pull me out of the storm and back to the Day Room. She places a light hand over my wrist. Arms, hands, fingers, fingertips, I relax muscle by muscle.

I like Rapunzel because she talks to me. She doesn't use the distant voice that the doctors use. She talks to me in a way that makes me feel human. I like Rapunzel because whenever I tell her that my head is filled with sand, or that my fingers are like paperweights, she smiles and says "I know the feeling". Her freckles dance when she smiles.

I like Rapunzel because she doesn't give everyone the same response when she's looking at our paintings.

"Oh wow, I love all the splatters."

"Purple is my favorite color, too, Joan!"

"Tell me about that part, Arthur."

"You are not a sickness, Jack"

Wait, no.

"Jack, this is incredible."

She places a warm hand on my shoulder when she talks to me about my art.

It's a warmth that doesn't hurt, for once, and I like it.

Her eyes light up when she tells me about her art. She paints as much as she can, takes it to shows and galleries. On her days off, she says she likes to go out and do street art. Street art is where you take spray cans and concrete and mix black with color and give the street a name and leave your handprints all over his footprints and her footsteps.

Rapunzel says she likes how abstract my thinking is. I say how her smock reminds me of a trapeze net and how easy it could be to fall into her and would she catch me if I did?

No, wait. That's not what I said.

I say that I like the way she talks about art.

And I want to ask her if she's still afraid of monsters in the closet. And I want to ask her what color the darkness is. And I want to tell her that I'll go to one of her galleries someday. And I want to tell her that I'll get healthy for her.

And I want to tell her about my sister.

The grey-skinned man I share my room with tells me not to think of her that way.

Ebony hair and hard eyes. Long slender fingers that would wrap so easily around a neck.

He tells me he has experience in losing. He tells me that our kind of love, mental love, is a sickness that wraps around you like a snake. The love of the insane is a venom that infects anyone who touches it.

I think he had a daughter, once. He talks about her in his sleep. She collapsed like sand turned black in his iron grasp. I don't know what happened to her. But I know that Pitch hasn't seen her in eight years.

We have a little deal going, Pitch and I. I don't tell the nurses how he tries to kill me in my sleep, he doesn't tell them I'm hiding my meds under the mattress. He never actually tries to kill me, though. But sometimes I feel the cool gray fingers slip around my throat at night when he thinks I'm asleep. He says it's to remind himself what he's capable of. I ask if he'll ever actually do it.

"To anyone, or just to you?"

"To anyone."

"Oh. No. No, I don't think so."

Then his gold eyes get dark and misty and he'll mutter something about lost causes more to himself than to me. Pitch makes me feel scared. He makes me feel like life is nothing but a light that slowly dims its way into darkness. He makes me feel like I'm living inside someone's cradled fingers, and their grasp is closing in on me until I can't breathe.

I don't like it, but at least I feel something.

I think we feel the most life as we tiptoe to the edge of death. That's what I would tell myself before, anyway. Before the hospital, after the lake. A short quiet period of cuts and bruises and wishing and forgetting and remembering again and numb, numb, numb…

Rapunzel makes the wounds scab over and scar. In a good way. Doctor Andy tells me to forget the past. Rapunzel doesn't tell me to forget. And I like that.

At night I dream I'm walking down a long hall that's stretching further and further as it goes down and there seems like there's no end but I can't keep my legs from moving and I can't stop my feet from walking and it just goes on and on and I'm losing breath, and just as I reach the edge of the hallway I see my little sister's arms outstretched towards me and I reach for her, and I'm almost to her, and then I slip through the ice into a frozen lake. Just like she did.

I wake up screaming. Doctors in white coats and nurses in white pressed uniforms come rushing in. Hands are grasping at me frantically and I push them away because I worry it might be Pitch trying to strangle me again.

"We're getting her, Jack. She's coming, it's alright. You can calm down now."

I hate that they say I "can calm down now". As if they've just waved a magic wand and poof! I'm not insane, anymore, it's okay, you can calm down now.

But I hear them say she's coming and for a moment I hold my breath because I think they mean Emma. Then I realize I've been screaming for Rapunzel the entire time.

She comes in calmly at three in the morning with a warm smile that immediately makes the storm inside my head swell down. She sits down on the corner of my bed.

"Hey, you. What's going on?"

Words spill out like a busted water pipe. I say that I am a merry-go-round mess, and that if people were snowflakes Emma would be melted by now and I would be a mismatched pattern and if people were road maps I would lead her off the edge of the world and if I were a season I'd be choking and I can't remember my mother's name or my sister's favorite color except I do because it was mauve and I made fun of her and I told her that was a boring color and now she's driving off a cliff in a crimson convertible and I can see the terror in her eyes when I close mine and I just want it to be over…

Rapunzel is rocking me back and forth as she hums a song about flowers. It's a song she hums when she paints sometimes. I close my eyes and let the scent of vanilla and lilac flood over me. Screams that don't belong to my throat grow distant in my brain and all I hear is Rapunzel's soft voice singing about magic flowers. My breathing regulates itself and I realize I've been sobbing this whole time.

I catch a glimpse of her figure leaving the room before I drift off. I notice that she was wearing pajama pants under a robe. The last thing I can picture before the sleep overtakes me is Rapunzel driving to the ward at three in the morning her pink plaid pajama bottoms and Dexy's Midnight Runners t-shirt. And that I'm the one who woke her up. She was asleep in bed when one of the nurses must have called her and apologized but "one of the patients is acting up, and he's asking for you." She probably rolled her eyes and pictured my desperate face, my little boy voice screaming her name.

And for what's not the first time I think Pitch is right when he says insane love is like venom. And I've just infected Rapunzel.

Two weeks later I'm sitting at one of the tables in the Day Room. I don't have to worry about any of the other patients looking over my shoulder because most of them are scared of me. They call me the screaming kid down the hall. My hand is shaking because I'm writing a letter to Rapunzel. There's a pile of crumpled papers to my left because I've started this damn note nine times already. I keep scribbling out the inked words, telling myself to not use metaphors, for once. For once, Jack, just try and be normal.

_Dear Rapunzel,_

_How are you today? I am fine, [except for the pounding in my knuckles and the voices in my head—]_

_I am fine._

_I was just remembering how you mentioned that gallery show that was presenting some of your work, on Sunday, did you say it was? Anyway, I've been talking with Doctor Andy, and I thought that maybe it could be fun if I went out for the day to come see your art at the gallery. Doctor Andy says he's not sure, and you don't have to take me if you don't want to, but… would you want to? I really want to see that "Man in the Moon" painting you told me about. We could talk about the art and you could show me your favorite pieces [and I won't have any panic attacks or anything, probably,]_

_I think it could be very nice. Maybe you could talk with Doctor Andy and see if it seems like something you might want to do?_

_[Thank you for making me feel normal again]_

_Have a nice day._

_[Love,]_

_[Yours truly,]_

_[Sincerely,]_

_-Jack_

I don't tell Doctor Andy about the letter at our appointment because I'm afraid he'll make me read it and I'm embarrassed. Plus I want Rapunzel to be the only one to read. But he says I seem better today, and I take that as a good sign. I'm jittery and jumpy most of the day, because I can't wait to give Rapunzel the letter, and I'm a little nervous that my heart might fall out my mouth when I hand it to her.

I wait until the other patients are in bed because I don't want anyone else to be around when she reads it. Rapunzel is by the door and she's putting on her coat and getting ready to leave. My heart starts beating faster and heavier and I just want to bolt to the door and twirl her around, but my feet are glued to the floor around the corner. One of the nurses walks up to Rapunzel and asks if she can "have a word with her for a moment, please". She's one of the stricter nurses. I think she's the head of my floor. Rapunzel nods and they walk around a corner, but I can still hear them speaking in polite whispers.

"Some of the doctors and I have been talking, and we think that your relationship with…some of the patients is becoming a bit inappropriate."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there is a strict policy about keeping your personal life separate from your work. And…some of the doctors feel you are crossing that boundary."

"Is this about Jack?"

"Your relationship with Patient Overland is putting your position in jeopardy, Ms. Corona."

"…Oh."

"Just please keep that in mind when…interacting with the patients."

"Yes, ma'am"

"Have a good night."

My hand is trembling and the letter is getting crumpled. I dart back to my room before she can look to see where the neurotic foot tapping is coming from."

"_Is this about Jack?"_

She said it so…so easily. I hide under my sheets and pretend I'm in a bomb shelter.

_Idiot._

_Coward._

_But would it have been worth it? _I ask myself. Would it have been worth it, after all, if I had seen her green eyes scan over the ink-stained paper? If I had seen her features slowly droop until she meets my gaze and says "that's not what I meant by it, Jack. That's not what I meant."

When the nights are lonely and I dare to play the what-if game I imagine what my life with Rapunzel would be like.

Living in a shoebox apartment with colorful photographs on the walls. We'd have one of those refrigerators with the poetry magnets on it and write little love notes to each other throughout the day. We'd spend the evenings watching bad late night television. She'd be wearing sweats and one of my old shirts, blonde hair up in a messy bun. I'd be wearing boxers and my Pink Floyd t-shirt. Her tiny frame would fit seamlessly against my chest, my arms tucked over hers. We'd have one of those tandem bicycles and on sunny Saturday afternoons we'd ride it to the park and watch the clouds drift, and watch the sun set from an old bridge over the water. Her head would rest on my shoulder, and her warmth would become familiarity. Her pink lips would whisper my name sweetly in the mornings when I bring her toast and burnt scrambled eggs in bed. Soft kisses on foreheads, cheeks, lips, necks…

Stop, it Jack. This is not the life you have carved for yourself. Your life is made up of pills and doctors' clipboards and nurses in white pressed uniforms and golden eyes boring into your scull when all you want is blackness. Not Rapunzel. When I was eleven I remember I nearly spent the entire summer outside. I loved the way the sun felt against my cheek. I'd spend hours nesting in the grass outside my house, closing my eyes to try and look at the sun. I think there's still a patch of dead grass in the front lawn of my house from when I used to lay there. Christ, that's a good metaphor for me, isn't it? Leaving patches of dead grass everywhere I go from staring at the sun too long. I don't want Rapunzel to become another patch of dead grass. I've had too many casualties of my madness, I don't know if I could stand to add her to the list.

She'll catch herself, sometimes, when I'm painting she'll place that warm hand on my shoulder and sigh dreamily, only to stiffen slightly and pull back. Not too much, just enough to make the distinction. There's a difference between us. The sick and the healthy. The sane and the insane. The mess and the normality. The dream and the nightmare. And would it have been worth it…

One night the nightmares were bad, because they were filled with dead sisters and distant loves and too many lost chances and I thought my head was going to split open, and I hated myself, because I was crying for Rapunzel like a scared little boy wishing on a dead star. But she came. I was sort of relieved because she was still in her uniform; she wasn't wearing pajamas this time. But she did look slightly different. She was holding something behind her back. She sat on the edge of my bed and took a cautious look out the door of my room.

"I've brought something for you, Jack."

She revealed the object behind her back to be a tiny plush chameleon. "This is Pascal," she said, quietly and cheerfully. I took the green toy in my hands. "Just a little friend to talk to if I'm ever…not around. Do you like him?"

I could feel my stupid crooked smile on my face. "Yeah, yeah I do." My eyes met hers and I had to remind myself not to hold my breath. "Thanks, Rapunzel."

"Of course, Jack," she placed a gentle hand on my knee, before seeing what she was doing and promptly removing it. I wanted to tell her about the apartment and the bicycles and the refrigerator and the sunsets. But I shove the images out of my head instead.

"You are not a mistake, Jack." Her eyes are serious yet bright. I nod. When she leaves the room I drop my gaze back down to the green chameleon in my lap.

I may not be a mistake, but we are.

Two days later I'm sitting in the Day Room listening to the wave tracks on the sound system. Through the glass windows I see Rapunzel talking animatedly to someone behind the wall. She giggles and nods at something they've said. A pair of strong arms wrap around her and I get a full view of him when he spins her around. Tousled brown hair and stubble on his chin. Blue eyes and denim jeans and a black V-neck. Her posture is slumped and bashful around him. A smile I've never seen her make now plays across her mouth.

It's an exchange that's simple enough, but I feel like drowning. I bet he takes her to foreign films on cool Saturday nights. I bet he kisses her forehead in the morning. I bet she cooks him French toast with strawberries. I bet she takes him to all of her art shows.

My limbs are turning into lead and I feel like melting into the floor. It shouldn't surprise me the way it does. Of course she has a life outside of you. Of course she does, you oblivious idiot. Of course she's happier in that life than she'll ever be with you. Of course. You're a sickness, Jack. That's all you are. You're a sickness.

Would it have been worth it? Would it have been worth it if even, in my most naïve fantasies, she loved me too? Would it have been worth to share my illness with her? To watch her slowly decay in my grasp? Even magic flowers die, when the cold frost bites hard enough. I tell myself to stop breathing, because if I start breathing then I'll start thinking, and if I start thinking, I'll start crying…

That night I tell that stupid stuffed chameleon about my sister.

And I think about life. How it ends as hardly a footnote. How the song ends in the middle, the drums beat their way to death, and just as you soar over the high note, the tune is over, and all you're left with is the empty silence that surrounds you.

I had always pictured in my head what my life with Rapunzel might be like. I imagined the day I took her to Emma's grave. She would hold my pale hand in her tiny one. And I wouldn't break down and cry for once, because she was there. But even if I did, it would be okay. Because she was there.

I wonder if I'll ever check out of this place. Or if the vast clinical emptiness will swallow me until I'm nothing.

I've lost track of the time because the doctors won't let me look at calendars anymore. But I know it's Thursday because I'm sitting in the art room and Rapunzel has purple chopsticks in her hair. She teaches us how to use oil pastels. I color a frozen lake covered in rainbow feathers and pretend my sister turned into a mythological bird that flew over the ice that day. Rapunzel takes my hand which makes my stomach do a backflip because I haven't talked to her since I saw her through the window. She takes me to a small room behind the little wooden door and I realize the door leads to her office. I appreciate how it doesn't remind me of a doctor's office. The entire room is rocking with life.

She has some kind of painting hidden under a tarp and she says she wants to show it to me. My cheeks are red and hot because she's so beautiful and she's right there in front of me. I almost want to run my hands through her because she looks like a ghost. But instead I nod and she takes the tarp off the painting.

"It's…it's me." I say.

"I know." She says.

I'm sitting on a waxing moon with a mystical-looking staff in hand. My eyes are closed and there's an ethereal smile on my lips. So this is what I look like. I read the caption beneath the painting: _Child of the Moon: Jack Frost_

I feel the crooked smile on my face, but I welcome it for once. "I'm Jack Frost?"

She grins and her hands rest thoughtfully on her hips. "I sorta think so. It just seems…right."

I look at painted Jack again. No cuts on my wrists, no pinpricked fingertips. I am not a mistake. I am not nothing, and I am not a sickness. Rapunzel has made me beautiful.

I swallow the lump in my throat before I do something stupid like cry. I turn to her, and she's wearing a bashful smile. Like the one she wore for the other man. Only different. I think I like this one better.

I'd never thought to describe my life as normal, nor would I care to, but when I think of normal romance I don't think of me and Rapunzel.

But I do feel the heat climbing in the room when her hand brushes mine. And I do feel a healthy sickness spreading through my chest when I look at her green eyes. And for once I'm not afraid to bring my mess with me.

I don't believe that there's a true love for every person on this fucked up planet, but I do believe that there are few people who can keep the world spinning when you feel frozen. Rapunzel is my one of few, and even if it's not forever, and even if we break into little glass pieces, I will allow myself to feel my way through life with her at my side.

Because she is my sun in the wintertime. And I think I can finally feel the sun again.


End file.
